The Birthday Lists
by ThatPrettyStare
Summary: For KH - Akyra on her birthday. Birthdays aren't just cake and presents to Clare, they're something much bigger. Through her childhood and into her adult years, Clare cherishes birthdays and what the day will mean to a new someone special.


**AN: This is a super special post for a good friend and beta of mine, Miss KH – Akyra! :) It's a cute and fun oneshot. Hope you like it, Alex! Happy birthday!**

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><p>Clare Edwards rolled over in bed in the late morning of her twelfth birthday, mumbling and yawning drearily. A pop song started blaring from her speakers and woke her up, causing Clare to moan angrily. Her arm flailed, as she hopelessly trying to crush her alarm clock to bits.<p>

She yanked her comforter over her head, trying to block the noise as if it was the last thing she would do. Clare let out a cry of rage, reaching her arm out again, and she finally grabbed the alarm clock. With all the effort her tired body could muster, she threw the alarm clock across the room. The satisfying crunch, which was followed by complete silence, told her everything. She slept for another blissful five minutes when she rolled over again.

Right onto the floor.

Then, she was sure that the alarm clock wasn't the only thing that was broken. Clare moaned in pain, and then started to pound the floor with her fists. Clare didn't want to wake up that day. The day was bound to be horrendous, awful, terrible, and everything wrong in the world.

Why? Because she was getting her braces on.

She quickly dressed and brushed her teeth, but she was too nervous to eat. The drive to the orthodontist's office was brief, but it didn't help Clare much. She squirmed constantly; what if something went wrong or the kids at school made fun of her? Fear quickly overtook her as she went into the procedure room.

The procedure took an hour or two. After it was all wrapped up, Clare ran her tongue over her "new friend", as the orthodontist liked to call it. Clare would have preferred to call the braces a different name, but she bit her tongue in spite and worry. She grabbed many pamphlets on how to take care of her braces, just to be safe.

As she walked out of the orthodontist's office with a deflating balloon that read "Happy Birthday!" and a mouth full of pain, she noticed the only boy left in the waiting room. He was getting his braces _off_. He was a year older, and he snickered when she walked out of the doctor's office. He was cute (she liked dark hair), but she didn't care. It hurt to stick her tongue out at him.

That interaction helped to make birthday #12 earn a place in her "worst birthday" top 5. Clare went to bed that night feeling upset and dead tired. Her birthdays weren't normally that bad and she was ready to sleep away the pain.

She knew she'd never forget that day.

Clare awoke in the morning of her eighth birthday to her favorite sound in the world: cartoons. Her face broke into a splitting grin when she realized what day it was. She raced down the stairs in her red pajamas, slid on the wooden floors and into a plate stacked high with mesmerizing flapjacks. She gobbled plateful after plateful, watched The Powerpuff Girls beat up the bad guys for three hours, and Clare didn't even have to take an early morning bath. It was perfect.

The trip to the new theme park in the next town over with her best friend was the icing on the cake. Jake made funny faces the whole car ride there, and Clare giggled freely until her sides hurt. They played her favorite road game (License Plate Lookout, duh) and Clare won every time. Jake squeezed her hand when they went under bridges, and she felt safe and happy.

The theme park was amazing, to put it lightly. Jake was afraid of roller coasters, so Clare went on them with her mom instead. Every twist and turn, loop, and thrilling second of spinning upside down was completely exhilarating. She hollered at the top of her lungs, without a care in the world. Clare didn't even get sick on those pretty, pastel spinning teacups. Jake whooped in joy when they reached the water rides.

On the ride home hours later, Clare fell asleep with her favorite book nestled comfortably next to her. She dreamt of owning her own bookstore, with all of her novels on the shelves. This grown up Clare was beautiful and smart and everything else little Clare knew she would be someday. Without a doubt, birthday #8 made her "best birthday list" top 5.

It was a day she knew she'd never forget.

Clare woke up earlier than usual on the morning of her fourteenth birthday. She sat up and rubbed her eyes with her fists, looking much like the child she was many years ago. Her long hair was in tangles, her new contacts sat on her end table beside the bed, and her mouth stretched in a yawn, braces glinting. Everything was normal.

Nothing remotely special was planned for the day, but Clare didn't mind. She'd like to have a nice day just to herself; she had had extravagant birthdays and terrible birthdays in the past, and she wasn't sure if she was ready to look at The Lists just quite yet. A normal day would be perfect.

She shifted in bed, ready to sleep again, and felt her abdomen shift and gurgle. She frowned, and then shrugged. She might as well make a trip to the bathroom while she was already up. Clare shuffled across the hall, stifling a yawn. As she approached the bathroom, she frowned yet again. Something didn't feel right...

It hit her like an unyielding blow. She ran the rest of the way to the bathroom, quickly pulled her shorts down, and moaned in agony.

She had gotten her first period. On her birthday.

Clare didn't dare run back to her bedroom; she was sure her sheets were stained. Instead, she peeled off her clothes and hopped into the shower, no matter the fact that it was four o'clock in the morning. When she returned to her room much later, wobbling in discomfort, the sheets and her comforter were gone and there was a sticky note on the bed.

It was in her mother's messy scrawl:

_Clare,_

Enjoy today. Do whatever. I can't image how you must be feeling. I'm available to talk if you need.

Love,

Mom.

PS - There is chocolate in the freezer.

Clare didn't know what was worse; the fact that her mother took pity on her or the fact that she had gotten her period. On her birthday.

In the end, she decided not to dwell on it. She watched cartoons and ate frozen chocolate downstairs until Alli, her sort of friend from book club, stopped by as surprise. Clare screamed at her, her raging hormones getting the best of her, but Alli understood (she had gotten her period in sixth grade). Together, they played hearts and gossiped about the new boy at the book club that Clare thought she recognized from somewhere.

Clare sat on her fresh, new sheets at the end of the day, contemplating the Birthday Lists. She definitely had a problem. It was one of the first birthdays where the day wasn't too horrendous or super amazing.

It wasn't long before she decided on making a Neutral Birthday List. She wrote "fourteen" at the top. She surprised herself that the day she got her period wasn't the worst, most agonizing thing, but she thought it must be hormones.

Or something.

By the time Clare Goldsworthy's daughter woke on her first birthday, the happy mother was already refreshed and ready for the day. It was a pleasant spring day; Eli had taken the day off and a lovely picnic in the park was planned. Clare was more than excited for her daughter to have the best day ever.

Unfortunately, little Alex woke up screaming at the top of her lungs.

Clare ran to the nursery and picked her small daughter up and out of her crib. The mother's brow was furrowed in worry; Alex couldn't quite string sentences together yet, so Clare couldn't ask what was wrong. A slew of terrible things ran through her mind. What if the baby was sick? That could only be trouble. What about the picnic? After all the planning Clare made to have Alex have the best first birthday, it would be positively awful for her to be unhappy.

"Oh, honey, what's wrong?" Clare asked anxiously. She bounced the toddler in her arms, trying to calm her down to no avail.

Clare tried everything; she changed Alex's diaper, sang her songs, and fed her. But nothing Clare did seemed to calm her. After a long period of time, Clare went into her own room, Alex at her hip.

"Eli!" Clare cried. With her free hand, she threw a nearby throw pillow at him. "Wake up! It's nearly ten."

Eli groaned, rolling over in bed, looking much like Clare did on the morning of her twelfth birthday. His hair was all over the place and his shirt was hiked up across his chest. Clare tried to hide her amusement at the sight.

Alex gave another squeal, and Eli murmured something similar to "five more minutes" before groggily sitting up.

"Whazz' goin' on?" he said sleepily.

"It's Alex," Clare replied anxiously. "I can't calm her down. What if she's sick, babe?"

Eli rolled out of bed and padded over to his wife and child. "Give her here," he said simply. Clare gingerly gave Eli the squirming toddler and he recoiled as she struck out at him.

"Alex!" he said sternly. "We don't hit!"

He sighed, still half asleep, and began rocking her to calm her. Eventually, with Clare's gentle cooing and Eli's silly faces, Alex relaxed enough to stick a chubby hand in her mouth and babble.

Eli and Clare simultaneously breathed a sigh of relief. "See," Eli said, now facing Clare with that famous smirk on his features, "all she needed was her dad."

"She needed both of us," Clare insisted, smiling.

"Will you take her for a bit? I'm going to get ready for the picnic." Eli handed Alex over to Clare before stripping his pajamas and tossing on some clothes. Clare put Alex on the floor, where she happily crawled around and gurgled more.

"I'm just glad she's not sick," Clare murmured, more to herself. "I've gotten...sick on my birthday before and it wasn't the best experience I've had."

Eli grinned, walking over to Clare and kissing her tenderly.

"You know how toddlers are. They just need some parental love," he swiped a curly tendril from Clare's cheek and placed it behind her ear. "She'll love the picnic, I know it."

"I hope!" Clare said, once reassured but now still anxious. "Do you think it will make her Top Five on her best birthday list?"

"Her what?" Eli asked curiously, his arms now wrapped around Clare's waist. He glanced over at Alex, who had found a toy and was rattling it.

Clare blushed a deep scarlet. She had forgotten that Eli didn't know about her Birthday List tradition; one that she still practiced and planned on telling her daughter about.

"Oh, never mind, just a passing thought. Shall we get Alex ready to go?"

Eli nodded in response, taking Alex by the hand and walking with her to the nursery. He laughed and played with her while Clare reminisced about her younger days.

The Birthday Lists were a tradition she had for as long as she could remember. She ran her tongue along her now straight teeth, remembering when she had gotten them on. That was on a List. Clare couldn't forget the amusement park with Jake birthday and how great she felt riding a roller coaster for the first time. She shuddered at the period birthday; no one wants to remember their first period and how foreign it was.

And then there was her seventeenth birthday, where Eli has planned a picnic lunch at the park and a moonlit first kiss. That was extra special and still topped the Best Birthday List.

Clare had always loved her birthday, no matter if a certain one was good or bad. It was always an occasion to be remembered and cherished, where Clare felt nothing as extraordinary could happen any other time. Clare could only hope her daughter grew to feel the same way.

As Clare turned to exit her bedroom, she carefully pulled out Alex's single list that she had made that morning. In her neat handwriting, she wrote "first" under the heading: _Alex's Best Birthdays._


End file.
